In the four years since the first Trieste Meeting on Spin and Polarization Dynamics in Nuclear and Particle Physics, considerable progress has been made both in the theoretical and experimental aspects of this field. The polarization phenomena have given rise to many more detailed and crucial tests which enhance our understanding of particle physics. New information can also be uncovered in the process of conducting the various tests. For this reason, considerable efforts have been put into the present and future accelerators to extend the experimental data to measure polarization asymmetries for both polarized targets and polarized scattered and produced particles. The 2nd Adriatico Research Conference held in January 1992 brought together both theorists and experimentalists who presented many new findings. These findings have been compiled into this compact volume to give a complete picture of the wide range of theoretical and experimental problems, difficulties, results, prospects and hopes which are at the core of particle physics studies today. It will be a useful guide for the present status of polarization phenomena and their fundamental implications.

The various phenomena caused by refraction and diffraction of polarized elementary particles in matter have opened up a new research area in the particle physics: nuclear optics of polarized particles. Effects similar to the well-known optical phenomena such as birefringence and Faraday effects, exist also in particle physics, though the particle wavelength is much less than the distance between atoms of matter. Current knowledge of the quasi-optical effects, which exist for all particles in any wavelength range (and energies from low to extremely high), will enable us to investigate different properties of interacting particles (nuclei) in a new aspect. This pioneering book will provide detailed accounts of quasi-optical phenomena in the particle polarization, and will interest physicists and professionals in experimental particle physics.

Explains what spin is and how spins are polarized to study elementary particles, nuclei, atoms and molecular structures.

Physics of Nuclei and Particles, Volume II explores the prevalent descriptive methods used in nuclear and particle physics, with emphasis on the phenomenological and model-based aspects. The interactions of nuclear particles are discussed, along with nuclear forces and potentials and scattering and reaction models employed in nuclear physics. The nuclear structure and models of the nucleus are also considered. Comprised of four chapters, this volume begins with a review of the characteristics of nucleons and other particles that play a role in nuclear interaction processes in order to gain further insight into the underlying physical problems. Neutron physics, antinucleons, deuteron physics, and two-body nuclear forces are highlighted, together with three- and four- nucleon systems and heavy-ion physics. The next three chapters deal with nuclear forces and potentials, as deduced from nuclear dynamics (scattering and polarization); scattering and reaction models used in nuclear physics; and nuclear models such as the shell model, models of deformed nuclei, and many-body self-consistent models. The book concludes with an analysis of the Brueckner-Bethe-Goldstone theory of nuclear matter. This book will be of interest to physicists.